May has presented other programmes on themes including science and technology, toys, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. He wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph's motoring section.

Journalism

During the early 1980s, May worked as a sub-editor for The Engineer and later Autocar magazine, from which he was dismissed for performing a prank.[7] He has since written for several publications, including the regular column England Made Me in Car Magazine, articles for Top Gear magazine, and a weekly column in The Daily Telegraph.

He has written the book May on Motors (2006), which is a collection of his published articles, and co-authored Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure (2006), based on the TV series of the same name. He wrote the afterword to Long Lane with Turnings, published in September 2006, the final book by motoring writer L. J. K. Setright. In the same month he co-presented a tribute to Raymond Baxter. Notes From The Hard Shoulder and James May's 20th Century, a book to accompany the television series of the same name, were published in 2007.

Dismissal from Autocar

James May's hidden message

In an interview with Richard Allinson on BBC Radio 2,[8] May confessed that in 1992 he was dismissed from Autocar magazine after putting together a hidden message or acrostic in one issue. At the end of the year, the magazine's "Road Test Year Book" supplement was published. Each spread featured four reviews and each review started with a large red letter (known in typography as an initial). May's role was to put the entire supplement together, which "was extremely boring and took several months".

May's original message, punctuated appropriately, reads: "So you think it's really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up; it's a real pain in the arse."[9] The editors of Autocar missed the 'joke' and only became aware of it when readers started calling in about it, thinking there might be a prize.

Top Gear

May co-presented the original Top Gear series in 1999.[17] He first co-presented the revived series of Top Gear in 2003, where he earned the nickname "Captain Slow" owing to his careful driving style.[2] He jokingly attributed his driving style to being 'traumatised as a small boy' by his mother's driving style.[18] Despite this sobriquet, he has done some especially high-speed driving, including in Top Gear Series 9, taking a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of 253 mph (407 km/h) which is nearly one-third of the speed of sound at sea level and later on taking a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport edition to 260 mph (417 km/h).[19] In an earlier episode he also tested the original version of the Bugatti Veyron against the Pagani Zonda F.

May, along with co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson and an Icelandic support crew, travelled by car to the magnetic North Pole in 2007, using a modified Toyota Hilux.[20][21] In the words of Clarkson, he was the first person to go there "who didn't want to be there". He also drove a modified Toyota Hilux up the side of the erupting volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland.[22] He has also driven a 1.3-litre Suzuki SJ413 through Bolivia, along Death Road, and over the Andes to the Pacific Ocean in Chile.

Science

May in 2007

May presented Inside Killer Sharks, a documentary for Sky and James May's 20th Century, investigating inventions.[23] He flew in a Royal Air ForceEurofighter Typhoon at a speed of around 1320 mph (2124 km/h) for his television programme, James May's 20th Century. In late 2008, the BBC broadcast James May's Big Ideas, a three-part series in which May travelled around the globe in search of implementations for concepts widely considered science fiction.[24] He has also presented a series called James May's Man Lab. In 2013, May narrated To Space & Back, a documentary on the influence of developments in space exploration on modern technology produced by Sky-Skan and The Franklin Institute.[25]

James May on the Moon

James May on the Moon (BBC 2, 2009) commemorated 40 years since man first landed on the moon.[26] This was followed by another documentary on BBC Four called James May at the Edge of Space, where May was flown to the stratosphere (70,000 ft) in a US Air ForceLockheed U-2 spy plane. Highlights of the footage from the training for the flight, and the flight itself was used in James May on the Moon, but was shown fully in this programme.[27] This made him one of the highest flying people, along with the pilot, at that time, after the crew of the International Space Station.[27]

James May's Toy Stories

Beginning in October 2009, May presented a 6-part TV series showing favourite toys of the past era and whether they can be applied in the modern day. The toys featured were Airfix, Plasticine, Meccano, Scalextric, Lego and Hornby. In each show, May attempts to take each toy to its limits, also fulfilling several of his boyhood dreams in the process. In August 2009, May built a full-sized house out of Lego at Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey.[28] Plans for Legoland to move it to their theme park fell through in September 2009 because costs to deconstruct, move and then rebuild were too high[29] and despite a final Facebook appeal for someone to take it, it was demolished on 22 September, with the plastic bricks planned to be donated to charity.[30]

Also for the series, he recreated the banked track at Brooklands using Scalextric track,[31] and an attempt at the world's longest working model railway along the Tarka Trail between Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon, although the attempt was foiled due to parts of the track being stolen and vandals placing coins on the track, causing a short circuit.[32]

In December 2012 aired a special Christmas Episode called Flight Club, where James and his team built a huge toy glider that flew 22 miles (35 km) from Devon to the island of Lundy.[33]

In 2013, May created a life size, fully functional motorcycle and sidecar made entirely out of the construction toy Meccano. Joined by Oz Clark, he then completed a full lap of the Isle of Man TT Course, a full 37 3/4 mile long circuit.

Oz and James

In late 2006, the BBC broadcast Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure, a series in which May, a committed bitter drinker, travelled around France with wine expert Oz Clarke.[34] A second series was broadcast in late 2007, this time with May and Clarke in the Californian wine country,[35] and was followed by a third series in 2009 called Oz and James Drink to Britain.

Video Games

Internet

On YouTube, James May and his self-described crack team of scientists, mathematicians and comedians have created Head Squeeze[46] (now renamed "BritLab"; James no longer features as a presenter), a channel that provides left-field insights, sideways interpretations, bizarre facts and Terry Gilliam/Monty Python-inspired animation. The channel is a mix of science, technology, history and current affairs. The first video was published on in December 2012. Videos are produced by 360 Production[47] for BBC Worldwide.

^[1] "The worst ever would have to be James May, with his fish pie. Even though he won, which was extraordinary. He was drinking a bottle of red wine throughout the challenge, so I thought it was in the bag."

^[2] "This recipe is Gordon's version of a posh fish pie originally made by James May."